GX7 shutter stuck

It's been a bit crotchety on occasion in the past couple of months, but today it totally stuck. To judge from the shape I saw on the viewfinder just before, I think one of the silver connecting struts has become detached from its bit of shutter.

Have sent email to UK Panasonic repair for an estimate. Out of warranty, obvs.

Panasonic official repairers' email just referred me to their website online repair form. For the cost of returning it to get an estimate I'd be as well flogging it for spares or repair on eBay. The local-ish camera shop were more helpful about the possible cost as the guy I spoke to had had an EM-5 with shutter demise, but that had been under warranty. 'Tricky' was his conclusion. I don't think the sensor got damaged as I didn't drop it down a mountain or anything, but who knows?

Ironically the shutter has always been my least favourite feature of the GX7 due to the racket it makes.

I had a similar problem with my G2, after about a year or so the shutter got stuck in closed. It was out of warranty and nobody wanted to fix it because the model was old and the spare parts wasn't worth the price of fixing it. After I bought it with 500 Euros it got de-valuated to 200 Euros by the time it was broken. I still have it and still no one wants to fix it (I just keep it for emotional reasons, being my first Micro Four Thirds camera, and I was in complete love with it).

If you could manage to get the shutter curtain back up then you could change it to Electronic Shutter and keep it that way to avoid the problem. It does come at a sacrifice of the disadvantages of Electronic Shutter but it's better than a non-functional camera. I wish there was an option on my G2 for that.

I don't know if its just coincidence but 2 Panasonic broke down on me (G2 and my current GX7's AF Assist lamp doesn't work anymore), I am a bit scared of buying from Panasonic again and Olympus doesn't seem to have a better reputation for their quality of products. I don't know if I'm just having bad luck or not.

I had a similar problem with my G2, after about a year or so the shutter got stuck in closed. It was out of warranty and nobody wanted to fix it because the model was old and the spare parts wasn't worth the price of fixing it. After I bought it with 500 Euros it got de-valuated to 200 Euros by the time it was broken. I still have it and still no one wants to fix it (I just keep it for emotional reasons, being my first Micro Four Thirds camera, and I was in complete love with it).

If you could manage to get the shutter curtain back up then you could change it to Electronic Shutter and keep it that way to avoid the problem. It does come at a sacrifice of the disadvantages of Electronic Shutter but it's better than a non-functional camera. I wish there was an option on my G2 for that.

I don't know if its just coincidence but 2 Panasonic broke down on me (G2 and my current GX7's AF Assist lamp doesn't work anymore), I am a bit scared of buying from Panasonic again and Olympus doesn't seem to have a better reputation for their quality of products. I don't know if I'm just having bad luck or not.

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Yes I did try and see if I could push the shutter down and just use the electronic shutter but no joy.

But I did find a lightly used GX7 on eBay for a bit less than the shop thought it would cost me to get the old one repaired so I'm back on the road again.

I don't think there's any systematic quality control issue with Panasonic or Olympus, just sod's law!

Since my G2 was useless and no one wanting to try to fix it I did persist and managed to get the shutter locked in open position, so the camera could be used, even to this day, as for recording video (since it doesn't need to close the shutter).

Since I already have a better camera for video and stills I haven't used G2 for a very long time. I just keep it as an emotional memento.

I don't recommend, unless you are sure you want to or have another camera to replace your GX7, but if you could get the shutter to stay open then you could still use your camera 99% of the time.

Well as bad luck goes then I had the worst of them: my first serious camera was a Pentax K200D, the sensor started getting white pixels to the point that the images were useless after I year when I bought it (I bought it used). Then I got my G2 almost new and one year later the shutter gets stuck ... and now with GX7 having problems again

Yeah I don't want to fiddle around too much and scratch the sensor. I think the silver strut that's become detached is stuck in the recess the shutter should go down into and my experience of disassembling cameras has never gone well. And that was just a film p + s.

At the risk of stating the obvious about your AF light, have you checked it hasn't got turned off in the menu? There are all those AF/AE settings in the menu that I have no clue what they do (apart from knowing that it gets turned off in silent mode).